Think this is the worst winter ever? Think again

From the depths of the polar vortex, it seems that Central Kentucky is enduring its worst winter ever. It isn't. Remember 1978 in Lexington?

Feb. 1, 1985: motorists struggled up a hill on South Upper Street, between Vine and High streets. Another snowstorm hit the area two weeks later.
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Feb. 16, 2003: Lexington police closed West Maxwell Street because of a downed tree, one of many that fell during and after a severe ice storm.
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Feb. 16, 2003: An American goldfinch clung to an ice-coated bird bath stand in Versailles after an overnight ice storm left trees and power lines on the ground. Tens of thousands of Central Kentucky residents went without power for days.
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Feb. 13, 1985: Dave Anderson of Lexington waited in his car after sliding off the road on Newtown Pike near Iron Works Pike. Bluegrass Towing pulled his car out.
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Feb. 7, 1998: Erik Young of Quebec Way in Lexington spent the morning skiing off the top of his house onto a pile of snow he made from recent heavy snowfall.
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Jan. 20, 1994: Postal carrier Doug Willoughby made his way through snow-covered yards on Andover Drive to deliver the mail.
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Feb. 6, 1998: Steven Spencer, 13, cleared snow off his mom's car at their home on East Sixth Street in Lexington.
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Feb. 6, 1998: Bob Davis with Brett Construction Co. shoveled snow off the office roof at Kentucky Eagle Beer Inc. at 475 Angliana Avenue. Crews cleared tons of snow off the warehouse roof after it partially collapsed. There was heavy damage to the building and to several trucks inside.
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Feb. 16, 2003: Michelle and Joel Marquez and their friend Fidel Alvarado, right, tried to shake ice off of a branch that had partially fallen onto Lexington's Liberty Road and blocked their driveway.
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Feb. 16, 2003: Limbs fell because of the weight of ice on Kingswood in Lexington.
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Feb. 6, 1998: Freelance designer Tim Fooks cleared snow away from the sidewalk surrounding his Neptune sculpture in front of his house on Shropshire Avenue.
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From the depths of the polar vortex, it seems that Lexington and environs are enduring the worst winter ever.

They aren't.

It's important to keep these chilly episodes in perspective, said meteorologist Tom Reaugh of the National Weather Service office in Louisville. Extreme variations of temperature and precipitation "have been there as long as there's been an atmosphere," Reaugh said.

Winters are going to be cold and snowy, some of them so much so that they go into the record books, freeze pipes, stall cars and cancel school for eons. Remember 1978 in Lexington?

That winter is remembered as one of the state's worst ever, with cold and repeated snowstorms that closed schools and paralyzed areas of Kentucky for weeks. National Weather Service records show that for the week of Jan. 18 to 24, 1978, snow depth in Lexington was no less than 11 inches and for three days was at 14 inches.

When you escape your home only to struggle to work and the kids have missed a bunch of school days, the last thing you might want to hear is that things have been worse.

But they have.

The Lexington area has a chance of getting a three-fourths-inch coating of ice once every 50 years, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. In 1951, an ice storm dumped 2 inches of frozen rain and sleet on Lexington, topped by more than 7 inches of snow, and then temperatures dropped to minus-8.

Then, 52 years later, Lexington got the ice storm of 2003 — which many Lexington residents considered The Big One.

"Glazed and dazed" was the Herald-Leader's headline the day after, and that pretty much took it all in: Trees fell, power went out and much of Lexington went for a week in darkness and chill, and patience wore thin as people waited for power to be restored.

Nonetheless, the 2009 ice storm was more widely felt geographically.

Other storms were less of a problem for residential living and more difficult on drivers.

In 1985, trucks were stuck on Interstate 64 when nine inches of snow fell early in February, and below-freezing weather kept it rutted on the interstate as late as Feb. 15, making a Mount Sterling IGA parking lot a little pop-up city of truck drivers who dared venture no further.

Then-IGA assistant manager Arnold Curtis, who had lived in the area for 58 years, said that week's storm ranked among the worst ever.

Your mileage quite literally varies on which is the worst winter ever: The 2013-14 winter has been notable for consistently low temperatures. But 1994, when 10 inches of snow fell on Jan. 17, followed by a low temperature of minus-20 on Jan. 19, also is a contender, as was 1998, with its 11 inches of snow on Feb. 4.

Although fewer Lexingtonians would remember it, the winter of 1943 also deserves a shot at the title: The high temperature was 80 on Jan. 24. Three days later, 13.4 inches of snow fell.